


a silver sleeve along my side (one last time)

by Huinari



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Earthlings, Falling out, Gen, khrweek19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-26 21:46:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19777069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huinari/pseuds/Huinari
Summary: In the end, it was a difference in philosophy. For khrweek19.





	a silver sleeve along my side (one last time)

**Author's Note:**

> For khrweek19 Day 1, Cloud -> Favorite Group, Earthlings. 
> 
> This one-shot isn’t Petrichor-relevant, but I did use a familiar name for anyone who’s read it. For those who didn’t, these are the original names of the Earthlings.
> 
> Kawahira-> Acheron, after the river in the Greek Underworld.  
> Sephira-> Iphianassa, means ‘strong queen’. (but this is mentioned like once)

In the end it was a difference in philosophy.

For Acheron, it was more important that they prolonged the life of this planet in the safest way available to them – the Arcobaleno system. In order to continue the system of sacrifice, an overseer of the system was necessary, and for that to continue for the longest possible time, the last of the Earthlings needed to live for the longest possible time.

With their end came the end of this planet.

For Iphianassa – Sephira, as she called herself now – it was a gamble she staked her everything on. The chance that humans would reach the same kind of knowledge and understanding their people once did, and become able to find a way to sustain this world’s balance – and ensure their own survival – on their own.

With their end the planet would not end.

“Was it something you Saw?” It was a challenge he issued, not a question. He knew how her Sight worked, had honed his skills by evading her visions. It was not that the Vindice were blind or incompetent – it was merely that they were on different levels, far too different.

How did an ant see the whole of a tiger, after all? It was the limits of their makeup, the potential they were capable of.

Sephira shook her head and Acheron bit back a curse. A gamble. A ridiculous gamble, and she put everything on the line.

She put herself on the line.

“You are mad,” he said. “Mad, Sephira. Your Sight has finally driven you insane, and suicidal.”

Sephira frowned and put a hand on her stomach. “There’s no need to be rude.”

Acheron made a gesture, because if he didn't then he would tear his hair out in frustration. “No need to be – you just signed yourself up for death!”

Giving up her remaining lifespan, choosing to live among humans, choosing to live _as_ a human –

She was mad. She had to be mad.

He blamed the human. “I should have fought you when you made those rings.”

Sephira shrugged. “I would have won.”

Acheron swore in their mother tongue, the language now long dead and unintelligible to all save two souls on this planet. He cursed the heavens, their ancestors, the stones, and that impudent human.

“Come now, that’s just slander,” she said when he ran out of breath. “Giotto’s parents were married, he is not a bastard-born drinker of pig slop. At least I presume he doesn’t drink pig slop. I hope he doesn’t.”

“Of all the things, that’s what you choose to comment on?!”

Sephira ran a hand down her stomach, and winced. “Oof, she kicked me.”

Acheron bit his tongue, lest he break out into further obscenities. It was unlike him to curse like this, and contrary to what the Vindice might think of him, he wasn’t heartless enough to swear in the presence of a babe, unborn as she was.

“Madness,” he hissed out instead.

Sephira leaned back in her chair. “Maybe.”

In the tale of the youngest mermaid princess, on the eve of the day she was set to turn to seafoam, the mermaid’s sisters had traded away their hair to the witch for a solution, begging their youngest to kill the prince she loved but was not loved by so she could return to the sea, to them.

There was no witch he could beg to revert Sephira’s decision, but he had to ask. “Why?”

Did she love those humans so much that she was willing to die with them? What was it, about those weak, short-lived beings, those foolish, short-sighted lives that made them worth the sacrifice?

“They’ll never know what you gave up for them,” he said, and the bitterness of his voice made his words come out a curse. But was it a curse, to voice a fact?

In the face of the acerbic words he threw at her, Sephira smiled.

“I hope not,” she answered. “That’s too heavy a burden to bear, I think.”

Mad. Absolutely mad.

“You’ll damn them,” Acheron said. He didn’t have her Sight but he had age, and experience, and he could very well hypothesize what might happen. “I won’t follow your foolish example, Sephira. It might not be your daughter, or your granddaughter, but one day, when I pick a generation of the rainbow, it will be a descendant of yours on the altar to give their life for the sake of the world, and I will pick them gladly.”

They wouldn’t be like him and Sephira, but they would be superior to the average human. They would make a worthy sacrifice.

Her eyes were like the skies – clear, calm, vast. “As you should.”

Her words silenced him, but internally he was torn. It was the right thing, her blasé attitude towards his threat, her prioritizing the safety of the world over the life of her own blood, but it didn’t feel like an agreement with his ideals. A happenstance of coincidence with her own, rather.

“You evil woman.” The words were barbed, shattered glass. He was like a child, throwing stones in the hopes that it would hurt her, not caring that they scratched him too.

Sephira, as all those with the greatest orange Flames tended to do, accepted it. “I’m sorry I’m leaving you alone, by yourself.”

The thing about illusionists was that they liked to hide reality, to mix up truths and lies until it was impossible to tell where one began and the other ended. It was their nature to hide their true feelings, because in a fight of illusions to lose control of their own reality was to lose.

The thing about seers was that they had a habit of seeing clearly, sometimes too clearly. Even what others wanted to hide.

The greatest illusionist in the world, versus the greatest seer in the world. And the seer saw straight through him, just like she always did.

Acheron almost touched his face, unable to tell what kind of expression he was wearing – if it was covered up, or if it conveyed too truthfully the turmoil inside his heart. Almost.

“When your descendant becomes the sacrifice,” he threatened, to hide the uncertainty that made him waver. “And demands to know what they did to deserve it, I’ll tell them truthfully and gladly that their ancestor sold them out to a life of chains.”

“They deserve to know the truth,” Sephira said agreeably. “Thank you.”

His words didn’t affect her, and feeling frustrated and childish, Acheron left before he made a bigger fool of himself.

In the end, it was a difference in philosophy.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm used to writing them platonically but it could be seen as romantic if that's what you prefer.


End file.
